Quoting from The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester:

It was left to the genial Irish prelate James Ussher, while he was bishop of Armagh, to fix the date [of Creation] with absolute precision. According to his workings, which he managed to convince his clerical colleagues were impeccably accurate, God had created the world and all its creatures in one swift and uninterrupted process of divine mechanics that began on the dot of the all-too-decent hour of 9 A.M., on a Monday, October 23, 4004 B.C.

Before that is another paragraph. Since I've never seen one of those older Bibles, I didn't know about this:

Lest anyone forget, all the Bibles that were in use at the time [of William Smith's birth] had dates printed in bold scarlet letters in the margins, annotations to the verses of the Old Testament, designed to act as a gentle reminder. "In the Beginning, God . . . " had the number "4004 B.C." written beside it; the text of the Holy Scripltures' subsequent dramas, from Cain and Abel onward, had progressively lower and lower red-printed figures in the margin, until the events in the manger in Bethlehem, by which time the figure had been cycled down to a zero.

Although Ussher produced a considerable number of religious works, his most famous was the Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), published in 1650. In this work, he claimed, infamously, that the earth was created on the evening preceding October 23, 4004 BC. This work established what has become known as the Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar. It is a work that is still referenced by Young Earth Creationists (who believe that the Earth is approximately 6,000 years old) and has been much ridiculed as a symbol of religious obscurantism. The time is frequently misquoted as being 9 a.m., noon or 9 p.m. on October 23. See the related article on the Calendar for a discussion of its claims and methodology.

The Calender reference above is to:

The Ussher-Lightfoot Calendar is a 17th century chronology of the history of the world formulated from an interpretative reading of the Bible by James Ussher, the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh (in what is now Northern Ireland). The chronology, first published in 1650, is famously the source of the citation by many modern Creationists that the universe was created by God in 4004 BC.

The chronology is named for Ussher, as well as John Lightfoot, who published a similar chronology in 1642–1644. The chronology is, however, arguably misnamed, as it based on Ussher's work, and not on that of Lightfoot, who was later the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University. Ussher's work, more properly known as the Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world), was his contribution to the long-running theological debate on the age of the Earth. This was a major concern of many Christian scholars over the centuries. Ussher deduced that the first day of Creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday October 23, 4004 BC in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox, while Lightfoot similarly deduced that Creation began at nightfall near the autumnal equinox, but in the year 3929 BC.

Ussher's proposed date of 4004 BC was not greatly different from the estimates of the Venerable Bede (3952 BC) or Ussher's near-contemporary, Scaliger (3949 BC). It was widely believed that the Earth's potential duration was 6,000 years (4,000 before the birth of Christ and 2,000 after) corresponding to the six days of Creation, on the grounds that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Peter 3:8 ).

Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

I am hoping that US school boards-in their zest for "the [harrumph harrumph] good old days"--do not continue taking giant steps backward...all the way to the dark ages, as some are already intent on doing. This is one house of Ussher that is long-past-due to fall and not get up, or our next crop of students will lag even further behind their peers raised with more intellectually rigorous standards.

-gailr

Last edited by gailr on Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

gailr wrote: . . . This is one house of Ussher that is long-past-due to fall and not get up, or our next crop of students will lag even further behind their peers raised with more intellectually rigorous standards.

-gailr

Gail, all the sciences are in trouble as far as a general knowledge by the public goes. This particular type of "biological warfare" happens mostly in particular Western and Southern states [opinion]inhabited by people who would have been burned at the stake as heretics four or five hundred years ago, people who would violate the Establishment Clause in a manner the Founding Fathers would never have approved[/opinion]. People are still slamming the Catholic Church for what it did to Galilleo, but at least the Church acknowledges that there is no inherent conflict between Evolution and Religion. As one of the bishops defending Galilleo said, "The Bible tells us how to get to Heaven, not how the heavens go."

While we're on that subject, I just happened to see a bumper sticker today:

God is WhoEvolution is How

Seems like a reasonable division of responsibility to me!

The same pickup truck also had:

When you pull the pin from Mr. Grenade, he is no longer your friend.

I can't remember the rest of the half-dozen or so on the back of the truck, but I do remember there was another really good one. Too bad I can't remember it.

Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."

gailr wrote:I am hoping that US school boards-in their zest for "the [harrumph harrumph] good old days"--do not continue taking giant steps backward...all the way to the dark ages, as some are already intent on doing. This is one house of Ussher that is long-past-due to fall and not get up, or our next crop of students will lag even further behind their peers raised with more intellectually rigorous standards.

-gailr

Actually some things were much better, simpler, kinder back at the turn of the last century. I haven't seen trends in the schools to any of that tho'.

KatyBr wrote:Actually some things were much better, simpler, kinder back at the turn of the last century. I haven't seen trends in the schools to any of that tho'.

Kt

The evidence indicates that generalized nostalgia for the good old days seldom uses 20/20 vision. Although the anecdote goes that schools were wholesome places where the worst misbehaviour was gum-chewing or dipping of pigtails into inkwells, the contemporary records do not bear this out. Here are a few examples:

Forced separation from families, forced separation from first language, forced indoctrination into an alien culture as experienced by Native American children boarded at some US schools. Today, many people are unaware of this facet of cultural genocide at the hands of a powerful church + state + school board machine. Anyway, the missions are so pretty!

In the mid-1800s violence occurred over outrage that Catholic students were allowed to read from their Bible rather than the Protestant version at some eastern US public schools. This violence escalated to burning churches and killing people. (Such problems are moot when no one is required to read the Bible at public school; those who do not learn from history often force everyone else to repeat it.)

Jim Crow laws and the whole shameful history (not yet resolved in certain places) of discrimination, intimidation and violence against Black Americans. Look it up if this is an infamilar term.

In the 1920s German- and other foreign-born students experienced discrimination (and even banning) from some schools.

My grandparents remarked on the not-funny and not-cute bullying routinely endured at the hands of the oldest, biggest boys; boys who were capable of intimidating the young female teachers (rapid-turnover hires under the strict, double standard morality guidelines of the time). Pioneer writings, when not whitewashed for sentiment, also painted bleak pictures of intimidation and physical violence against those who were small or "foreign" or Native American or "wrong religion" or female or "weak"... you get the idea.

Perhaps there were schools--or at the least, classrooms--where all the Disney dreams came true, but it is unlikely that they represented the experiences of the majority of the students. Idealised histories never represent the experiences of the majority of the people living through them.

Schools are the absolute safest when everyone is Perfectly, Interchangeably, Identical. Of course, God didn't "ID" us to evolve that way.

Schools are next-safest when the students, staff, administrators and larger community get along without demonizing any of the smaller cultures of that community. By logical extension, households, businesses, places of worship, and public spaces are safest then as well. In communities where differences are fanned into flashpoints to force "us vs. them" compliance to a mythical past, everyone suffers. And the community looks foolish at best and insane at worst when viewed by outsiders or from the perspective of a few decades.

All your evidence notwithstanding, those were, (oh yes they were!) exceptions rather than the rule.
In 1962 I went to an inner city junior High school, I guess you call them middle schools, grades 7-9, they had gangs , but no one was ever shot, We did have one death while I was in High School, but it was a boy (who else) who was tobaganning down a hill in the dark who was killed by the chain gate with the warning on it not to ski or slid at night .
We had locker inspections, ocasionally they'd find a knife in an art student's locker, I never saw a fight or heard of anyone getting hurt. Oh wait one day we had someone let off a can of mace in the basement. This was in the 1960's, I'm sure it was rougher then than sixty or so years before in the schools.

But well, I'm sure your statistics are closer to the truth than my poor memory

Kt
I've noticed this a lot, People born after say 1970 are not taught the way life really was in mid-century much less in the beginning of the 20th century.

I've noticed this a lot, People born after say 1970 are not taught the way life really was in mid-century much less in the beginning of the 20th century.

Thanks for the significant age-regression, Katy! And with much less expense and scarring than plastic surgery, I might add. Please stay on the board forever, so I can nip back in for retouch work every five years or so...

I cheerfully concede that I did not fear that my stressed-out classmates might pull out a gun and open fire. And I reckon that mortal fear of the corporal punishment freely dispensed by the 15-decade rosary-wielding Dominican nuns [more scary and deadly than ninjas!!!] kept a lot of "acting-out" repressed. Also, back in my day [she croaks] we did not drug an entire generation of little boys for the "syndrome" of acting like little boys.

However, we were encouraged to believe some really silly things, such as: cowering under our desks in the event of a nuclear strike from them godless commies would provide adequate protection. I attended public and private schools during part of that golden period where everything was clean and white and American and Christian and middle-class and good. /facetious remark, that/ We'd heard rumors that this was not a universal experience--and even helped "buy pagan babies" to rectify those shortfalls--but a balanced picture of any aspect of history and culture was most definitely not in the curriculum. [I got that through a love of learning to gain knowledge and perspective, which includes thoughtful reading of both sides of issues that catch my attention.] In those more innocent times, however, we were there to Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, and to do so pointedly under God: indoctrination masquerading as education. And even I clearly remember the bullies in every grade who were given tacit permission by look-the-other-way authority figures to truly menace whomever they wished. Those who were not part of the "protected, majority culture" fared very poorly at their hands, indeed.

The chief difference now is that these children have a readier access to weapons, and even less inhibitions against using them. And the same can be said for their victims. The basal problems have yet to be addressed, and the repercussions are escalating. Posting decalogues, stunting intellects, and pressure for stay-at-home mommies do not address those basal problems; they camoflage strife without allaying it.

If they provided a workable solution, there would be no extensive public record of problems when they were the norm. Nor would succeeding generations strive so determinedly to overturn those which fostered abuse and failure--unwittingly re-directing those basal problems into new avenues to be dealt with by the next generation.

As any segment of human experience falls along a continuum, there are bound to be a few on either end of the positive/negative extremes, and a whole bunch distributed along the middle. I am genuinely happy that your school memories are so pleasant; that is good to look back on.

The chief difference now is that these children have a readier access to weapons, and even less inhibitions against using them.

Things have changed, people are different...
I never went to any Catholic schools I went to schools on the Military bases,(oh and btw we had access to many many weapons) kids are kids and can be cruel, so can teachers, but for some reason mayhem and homocide weren't our solutions, in fact It wasn't until recently that school shootings have been around, in 20 years all the kids will be taught that this was always the case, that schools are dangerous places filled with guns and other weapons.
I must, (yes I really must ) interject a small hypothesis here, for which I will be damned I'm sure:
Right around 1962 when those hideous prayers were abolished in schools where every child was told to say, "God, please bless our country's leaders, our families and our schools", since that time all of those things no longer blessed each day by millions of school children have gone to pot. (statistics available on google)

Do you think there just Might be a correlation?
Icabod, the glory of the Lord departs slowly.......

1. What you are talking about is indeed a correlation. I don't even bother to check Google. Correlation, however, does not guarantee causality, be that direct (a therefore b), indirect (a therefore b, therefore c) or stochastic (a results 65% of the time in b).

2. The most plausible etymology for Icabod, or closer to the source Ikhavod, is either "where is glory" or "not glorious". The Biblical figure Ichabod started his life in bitter memory of his father.

In addition to linguistic sidelines, I am amazed how Judaism, Christianity and Islam agree on days of the week despite the sometimes contentious disagreements as to how many years have ellapsed since the creation of the world.

Flam, While I may, by propinquity, have implied, the inferance was yours. (I placed my theory all in one paragraph, but never said they were cause and effect, just a thought)
I was referring to the biblical shekinah(?) glory that departed so slowly from the Temple that most people didn't realize it was leaving.

The temple was originally so filled with glory that the priests couldn't minister, Ichabod referred to the mother's statement when the child was born)
1SA 4:21 She named the boy Ichabod, saying, "The glory has departed from Israel"--because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband. 22 She said, "The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God has been captured."
1KI 8:10 When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. 11 And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.
The glory departing slowly must have been a conjecture on my part as to why people didn't notice it leaving, because I can't find a single scripture to back it up, it'd take sevreal verses to make that point. (In Ezekial he does mention the glory leaving the temple, then the city and resting on a local mountain top.)

You're not going to be "skewered" for mentioning the Bible, Katy; both its literature and its influence have played a major role in world history--for good and ill. Recognizing that humanity does not globally embrace a specific subset of a specific set of beliefs is not to conclude that those beliefs are persecuted or that their adherants should be silenced. And I don't mind if you bolster an argument by quoting one of its authors (any more than if you quoted from Homer, the Book of Going Forth by Day, Sun Tzu, Jinas, the Kebra Nagast, William Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, Chief Joseph, Albert Einstein, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Douglas Adams or the Dalai Lama). I would look for the quote to support the argument in a plausible way, even for those whose culture does not immediately recognize or reverence the author or work. Any questions would be on its effectiveness to the purpose, not on whether it has meaning for you, and I believe Flam has addressed that.

I do not follow how the selected verses from the Torah (personal musings of a person far removed in geography, time, religion and culture) support the premise that mandatory Protestant sectarian prayer (hand-in-glove with the imposition of a medieval RC understanding of the sciences) in public schools would improve life for contemporary US schoolchildren, especially in multi-cultural communities. Based on the premise that the majority rules, all schoolchildren in predominantly RC communities would participate in praying for the pope, the local bishop, the world and the furtherance of RC religious vocations. Similarly, all schoolchildren in predominantly Muslim communities would follow the Prophet's words, the most appropriate here being "The pursuit of knowledge is a duty of every Muslim, man and woman," and adhere to the modesty guidelines as set forth by his writings and those of his spiritual succcessors. The Talmudic laws would be reinstated, in full (although only in majority populations of conservative Jews; predominantly Reformed communities would have more relaxed regulations). Everyone in the sphere of influence of the Southern Baptist Convention would conform to SBC regulations in their dealings, public and private. Indigenous populations would similarly shift the religious school standards for local children. Communities where Asian immigrant populations become the majority will adjust school calendars to different holidays and all schoolchildren will start their secular days with prayers to no deity (Buddhism) at all or to ancestral or nature spirits (unless influential elders of those communites were converted to another religion, in which case it would hold sway). How about communities where the Wiccans, Pagans, Asatru, etc., might come out of their broom closets to surprise the locals with new majority, and the appropriate schoolday prayers of those trads? Last but not least: how about a community where atheists or The Church of Satan governed the school board? And to play the devils' advocate, that last would not institute torture and death, research-deficient, sensationalist self-proclaimed journalists notwithstanding. (NB: even social liberals can reference the Bible calmly, in two successive sentences. Did you note them?)

I would like to emphasize that these scenarious are not inherently evil; in fact, most have provided considerable social stability to different parts of the world, producing some really oustanding people. Some of them are even members of this board.

But the result? A balkanization of America, where cultural differences are not cherished and celebrated as adding to the whole, but rather wedges to shatter it. Publishers would experience the headaches and windfalls of producing dozens more "versions" of Geography, History (both world and US), Literature/Composition, Mathematics and Science texts to conform to the various religious preferences of their customers' school boards. This is the scenario that "majority religion rules the schools" ultimately leads to. A glance at contemporary world headlines shows it is not that far-fetched, resulting in anything but violence-free communities. Unless, of course, one of those religious sects shrilly demands to be the only one imposed on all, in both secular and religious matters, in which case underground violence simmers for centuries, erupting at regular intervals.

This social liberal thinks it would a tremendous step forward if people of various religious and cultural traditions could bow their heads and [pray] communally for guidance on a regular basis. The voiced part of the prayer would be for peaceful relations, guidance, thanksgiving, and sustenance. The unvoiced part would be personalized by each person's understanding of who and/or what the prayer/meditation is addressed to. It would never be a means to demonize the neighbor, or to limit the human mind to an infantile understanding of the physical world.

gailr
drags pulpit back to closet and retrieves dictionaries to participate in discussion on words.

Last edited by gailr on Mon Nov 28, 2005 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.